Eclipse or Netbeans?

[Stuxnet]

I've been tasked with writing a small-ish applet. It's been years since I dabbled in Java and I have no idea what the current "go-to" free IDE is. Whatever I choose will also be used by my team.

Opinions?

 

[SpiderWiz]

Our agency uses Eclipse. It's free, there seems to be to be a lot of plugins available.

 

[Cogman]

Eclipse is, by far, more popular than netbeans.

Netbeans is decent but has its quirks. It feels more lightweight and quick than eclipse.

Eclipse, to me, always feels cluncky. It just feels slow no matter what you are doing with it. Maybe that has been improved in the past couple of years.

Netbeans is owned by Oracle.. which could be a bad thing in terms of things like support.

Eclipse really isn't owned by an sort of large company, I believe the same guys that owned it in the start own it now.

 

[EvilManagedCare]

I personally prefer Netbeans, but you probably can't go wrong with either. Both have a large number of plugins and are free. I was initially drawn to Netbeans because at the time the GUI editor was nicer. But in the recent Eclipse update the GUI editor got some attention. IIRC the big difference is Eclipse's GUI editor is geared toward SWT development, while Netbeans was for Swing. Granted this may not be the case any longer. I also liked how in Netbeans Tomcat was integrated into the IDE for web development. This may or may not also be the case for Eclipse.

You could see if the plugins available for both match your needs better than the other. Overall the functionality is very similar in both and in many cases may come to personal preference.

 

[hooflung]

Netbeans is by far the better IDE if you need a good IDE that is quick and comes with the standard IDE tools such as version control, syntax highlighting, webserver integration and that type of ilk.

Eclipse is by far teh better IDE if you want to build a specific development environment.

Both come with their problems. Eclipse has too many plugins and they have their own dependency hell. Try to install Spring STS 3.7 for indigo in a fresh install and you'll soon realize you need to know java namespaces to decifer error messages so you'll know what dependencies you don't have, install them, then go back and try the original plugin.

And then sometimes their plug-ins just don't like each other. And if you are trying to checkout a svn project with the latest subversive but the project was checked in with an old version of subclipse then you'll know why some people spit venom about Eclipse.

Eclipse Indigo is a very fast IDE. I have an instance of it up in windows 7 and an instance of it up in a virtual when I work. On a first gen i5 dual core w. HT laptop. All the heavy work is done in the virtual (xp with all entrerprise networking setup).

But I came from Netbeans 6.7/.8/.9 and still use 7 on my 2010 iMac. You cannot go wrong with either one. I lean towards Aptana (custom eclipse) for web stuff and Eclipse Indigo for java.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I like Netbeans better, but I do very little Java editing.

 

[Aikouka]

I was initially drawn to Netbeans because at the time the GUI editor was nicer.

A GUI editor for Java has never been a huge draw for me, because while Java can support precise placement, which makes WYSIWYG simpler... using such a layout is very faux pas. Normal Java layouts are all relational, which Netbeans didn't seem to handle very well. Everything was all out of place and such, so I found it much easier to just do layouts myself. :\

 

[Ken g6]

I'd guess that if you like emacs, you'll like Eclipse. I like Vim and NetBeans. Honestly, I prefer Vim over NetBeans in most cases. The main advantages of NetBeans over Vim are the smart, Java-specific automatic code completion and javadoc lookup.

I've never seen a Java GUI editor that I could get working, let alone one I liked. I haven't tried NetBeans in several years.

 

[hooflung]

Netbeans 6.8 is when it started getting really good. It is by far the better IDE for php which has nothing to do with Java. It is also a capable Groovy and Ruby editor especially for local windows development.

7 is fantastic. The reason why I lean to Indigo is because I use it at work.

 

[Cogman]

Netbeans 6.8 is when it started getting really good. It is by far the better IDE for php which has nothing to do with Java. It is also a capable Groovy and Ruby editor especially for local windows development.

7 is fantastic. The reason why I lean to Indigo is because I use it at work.

I haven't really used Netbeans for Java development. But I have noticed that there are niggly issues when using for ruby or C/C++ development. Mostly, residing in the syntax highlighter. (though, a few have to deal with getting the compiler correctly setup.)

I still prefer Netbeans over eclipse, however. Eclipse just always feels slow to me.

 

[hooflung]

I haven't really used Netbeans for Java development. But I have noticed that there are niggly issues when using for ruby or C/C++ development. Mostly, residing in the syntax highlighter. (though, a few have to deal with getting the compiler correctly setup.)

I still prefer Netbeans over eclipse, however. Eclipse just always feels slow to me.

3.7 Indigo has only been out a since the end of June but it feels a hell of a lot faster than the previous 3.6 Helios release.

 

[sourceninja]

I used netbeans for a bit and it was nice. I never really liked eclipse.

I really wish either one could do proper line wrapping.

 

[Cogman]

3.7 Indigo has only been out a since the end of June but it feels a hell of a lot faster than the previous 3.6 Helios release.

I'll have to give it a shot then. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Stuxnet]

Thanks guys. Installed Eclipse, got the applet written, and the Java end of it is done.

 

[Kirby]

I've only used eclipse with atmel's embedded plugin. Can't say I'm a fan, although it got the job done. My frustrations were more likely due to atmel's plugin than eclipse itself.

Although for a while I did have problems with it having errors and hangups when I scrolled....

 

[IHateMyJob2004]

Have been using Eclipse for Java for 7 years now. It is the go to IDE for Java.

Learn the shortcuts and you can do things fast.

 

[Leros]

Eclipse.

I've actually become a really big fan of IntelliJ lately.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Netbeans is more elegant and less clunky. It feels more like a professional program than Eclipse. When I use Eclipse, it feels like I am using a KDE application and Netbeans feels like a Gnome application. Yes, I know that both are Java and have nothing to do with QT or GTK, but that is the best way that I can describe the feel of the applications.

I am worried about the future of netbeans now that Oracle has their slimy hands on it.

 

[Stuxnet]

I have to admit that Eclipse drove me nuts for the short period I was using it. I'm sure most of the behaviors that rubbed me wrong can be disabled, but still...

It got the job done, but if I had to work in that environment every day, I'd tweak the heck out of it our evaluate something else. I used JBuilder back in the day, which I liked quite a bit, but it was $$$.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Eclipse by far. The only reason not to use it is if your work has some draconian FOSS policies in which you have to get each and every piece of software that has a "FOSS like" license approved for each use case and every version that you wish to install (effectively saying that you, the user or administrator, can not legally accept the license agreement, and that the company lawyers need to do that). Even then, I would say give the lawyers and the company what it wants when it builds a policy like that and submit all the software you can find to have it approved

 

[Modelworks]

Microchip has ported their mplab software to netbeans and calls it mplabx. They did this because the previous software was windows only and now it is cross platform. It hasn't been a pleasant change for me though. The software isn't as reliable as the previous version and seems to be slower and clunkier . I'm not sure if that is netbeans fault or just trouble in microchip making the switch. It gives you an idea though of the possibilities with netbeans.


http://www.microchip.com/en_US/family/mplabx/index.html

 

[Kirby]

Microchip has ported their mplab software to netbeans and calls it mplabx. They did this because the previous software was windows only and now it is cross platform. It hasn't been a pleasant change for me though. The software isn't as reliable as the previous version and seems to be slower and clunkier . I'm not sure if that is netbeans fault or just trouble in microchip making the switch. It gives you an idea though of the possibilities with netbeans.


http://www.microchip.com/en_US/family/mplabx/index.html

Worse than the original MPLAB IDE?

 

[max347]

Real men use vim


...the rest of us use eclipse


Nah but seriously, eclipse is very good, will basically write programs for you. I have used both Netbeans and Eclipse in the last 4 years (this past year was eclipse), so I am not talking about 'maybes'

to those with the sluggishness comments, eclipse ran fine on my T60.